BurmaNet News: November 6, 2000

______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
An on-line newspaper covering Burma
________November 6, 2000 Issue # 1656__________
NOTED IN PASSING: ?Myanmar has also started with internet E-mail
services for the general public with initial users of only 2,500 and a
plan is underway to extend the number of such users.? See Xinhua: Over
249,000 Telephones in Operation in Myanmar
INSIDE BURMA _______
*AP: Myanmar troops extend offensive against Karen rebels
*Karen National Union: Burma Army Destroyed IDPs Crops
*Xinhua: Myanmar Restarts New Satellite Town Project
*Xinhua: Over 249,000 Telephones in Operation in Myanmar
*The Guardian (London): 'It was a risk but it paid off'?James Mawdsley
*DVB: Military intelligence arrests four students for staging protest
REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Kyodo: ILO May Still Punish Myanmar Despite Ban on Forced Labor
*South China Morning Post: Exasperated UN observer leaves big shoes to
fill
*New Straits Times (Malaysia): Myanmar pledges support for Malaysia
ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*Xinhua: Foreign Investment in Myanmar Encouraging at Start of 2000-2001
*Bangkok Post: Wa moving to saturate Thai market; Avalanche of speed
pills predicted
OTHER _______
*AP: Myanmar coach says he has a secret strategy against Thailand
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__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________
AP: Myanmar troops extend offensive against Karen rebels
Nov 6, 2000
MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) _ Myanmar government soldiers have extended their
offensive against Karen ethnic rebels, attacking another guerrilla
stronghold on Sunday, rebel officials and Thai villagers said.
Five hundred government troops attacked the Karen National Union base
at Waw Lay Khee, about 340 kilometers (212 miles) northwest of Bangkok,
said KNU officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It was the second attack on a KNU stronghold opposite Phoppra district
in Thailand's Tak province in less than a week.
Myanmar troops, aided by ethnic guerrilla allies of the Democratic
Karen Buddhist Army, launched an attack on a KNU stronghold at Wei Na Na
Hta, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Waw Lay Khee on Thursday.
The Karen claim to have held the base despite artillery and ground
attacks by about 400 troops.
KNU officials said about 150 civilians had been caught in Sunday's
fighting and were unable to flee to safety in Thailand.
The KNU claimed that four Myanmar soldiers died in the attack on Waw
Lay Khee and one of their own guerrillas was injured.
They also said that one Myanmar officer and nine other government
troops were wounded in heavy fighting through Saturday night around Wei
Na Na Hta.
Thai villagers near the fighting are being evacuated to safer areas
away from the border.
The attacks seem to follow a familiar pattern of the government taking
the offensive just as the rainy season, which began around July, is
coming to an end.
The KNU has been fighting for regional autonomy since Myanmar's
independence in 1948. It once controlled a large part of the country's
eastern border region, but in recent years lost its last major enclaves
along the border with Thailand. Its forces, thought to number 2,000 to
3,000, now fight in mobile guerrilla units.
It is the only major ethnic army that has refused to sign a cease-fire
with the military regime of Myanmar, also known as Burma. The government
has brokered deals with at least 15 other armies.
The KNU has said it will give up its armed struggle if its political
rights are guaranteed.
____________________________________________________
Karen National Union: Burma Army Destroyed IDPs Crops
Mergui-Tavoy District Information Department
4 November, 2000
Burma Army's Light Infantry Battalion 373 has destroyed six paddy
plantations belong to Karen villagers who are hiding from Burma army at
Mekerhkee in Tenasserim Riverside on October 25, 2000.
On October 25, 2000, a troop of Burma army from LIB 373 (under
controlled of Tatical Command 3, Operation Commanding HQ 5) had operated
to search for hiding villagers and had discovered a hiding site
Mekerhkee, Buthawplaw area, in Eastern Palaw Township (KNU Ler Mu Lah
Townhsip). That troop has destroyed six paddy plantations. The paddy
plantations belong to: (1) Saw Perler (approximate 2 acres)
(2) Saw Shwe Htoo (approximate 2 acres)
(3) Saw Pret (approximate 1 acre)
(4) Saw Lah Hton (approximate 3 acres)
(5) Saw New (approximate 3 acres)
(6) Saw Kye (approximate 2 acres)
Karen villages, which have situated around Buthawplaw (Ler Mu Lah
Towship) area were deserted because of Burma Army offensive against
KNU's (Karen National Union) Mergui-Tavoy District in 1997. Few
villagers fled to Thailand, became refugee but still many are hiding
from Burma Army in the jungle, and became internally displaced persons.
The Burma Army's intention is to eliminate the ethnic Karen IDPs who are
hiding in the area by killed, burn and destroy practices.
Starting from April 2000 villagers who are hiding around Buthawplaw area
are facing constant "search destroy and kill" operations launched by
Burma Army. Some escaped to Thailand but still many are hinging in the
jungle in fear, facing food shortage and illness.
____________________________________________________
Xinhua: Myanmar Restarts New Satellite Town Project
November 6, 2000
YANGON, November 6
Myanmar has restarted a construction project of extending the Dagon
Myothit, one of the three new satellite towns in the outskirts of the
capital of Yangon, after the project halted for more than three years
since mid-1997 due to being affected by the then Asian financial crisis,
according to sources at the Myanmar Ministry of Construction.
The Seikkan township of the Dagon Myothit, to be built into a garden
city of high standard, is located very close to downtown Yangon and is
expected to become a busy center.
A joint venture contract between the Department of Human Settlement and
Housing Development of the ministry and the Yangon City Development
Committee and the private-run Yuzana Construction Group was reached last
Tuesday to enable implementation of the suspended project, the sources
said.
There has been three new satellite towns with respective industrial
zones established in the outskirts of Yangon in recent years in an
effort to raise the standard of the Yangon city.
These are Dagon Myothit, Hlaingtharya and Shwepyithar, of which the
Hlaingtharya is designated as the most successful one.
Meanwhile, the Myanmar government is also building a major bridge
linking the Seikkan township and the Thanlyin township where another
major industrial zone initiated by Singaporean entrepreneurs lies.
____________________________________________________
Xinhua: Over 249,000 Telephones in Operation in Myanmar
DATELINE: YANGON, November 5
BODY:
A total of 249,083 fixed-line telephones were in operation in Myanmar as
of the end of March this year, official newspaper The New Light of
Myanmar reported Sunday.
The telephones were operated under 443 manual exchange and 96 auto
exchanges.
Though the telephone penetration per 100 population is 3.57 Yangon and
2.27 for Mandalay respectively, the two major cities of Myanmar, yet
the penetration remains low at 0.51 for the whole country, the report
said.
Twelve years ago, the number of such telephones in Myanmar numbered only
67,016 which were connected to 212 manual exchanges and 33 auto
exchanges.
The report went on saying that direct distance dealing services have
been greatly improved in Myanmar with the addition of digital micro-wave
backbones and radio spur routes, adding that international direct
dealing services became available with the establishment in 1994 of the
Standard A earth station and a new international gateway or transit
telephone exchange.
The international phone calls increased to incoming 50 million minutes
and outgoing 18 million minutes in 1999 from 2 million and 0.79 million
minutes respectively in 1988, the report said.
The report disclosed that the country is now conducting system test to
utilize traffic channels from 10,000 circuits allotted in Southeast
Asia, Middle East and West Europe three fiber optical submarine cable.
Meanwhile, there are 30,000 TDMA/CDMA cellular phones in Myanmar,
mainly in Yangon and Mandalay.
On-going GSM project will add 70,000 and 30,000 capacity to the two
cities respectively, the report said.
Myanmar has also started with internet E-mail services for the general
public with initial users of only 2,500 and a plan is underway to extend
the number of such users.
____________________________________________________
The Guardian (London): 'It was a risk but it paid off'?James Mawdsley
November 3, 2000
'It was a risk but it paid off': A fortnight ago, James Mawdsley was in
solitary confinement in a Burmese jail. Now, back in Britain, he tells
Oliver Burkeman he has no regrets
Oliver Burkeman
James Mawdsley is sitting in his father's flat in west London,
hollow-eyed with exhaustion, dazed by the flurry of publicity that has
greeted his return to Britain. This is hardly surprising for a man who
two weeks ago was entering his 415th day of solitary confinement in a
Burmese prison, one year into a 17-year sentence for distributing
leaflets critical of the country's brutal military regime.
But there is also a strange kind of homesickness for the place he has
left, and a heavy dose of disgust for the one in which he finds himself.
"What's regarded as important out there is things like life and death;
here, it's designer clothes and luxury ice cream and male cosmetics," he
says. He is most at ease talking of the friends he made in jail during
his brief periods of socialising, how much laughter there was. He misses
the rawness, the reality of it all. "But it's just culture shock. I'll
get over it. I'll become just as warped as everyone else."
Mawdsley landed at Heathrow the Saturday before last to a reception that
combined admiration, awe, sympathy - and frustration at the naivety he
seemed to have demonstrated in the way he chose to support the cause of
Burmese democracy and its heroic figurehead, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Three times the 27-year-old visited Burma with the explicit intention of
being jailed; three times he was arrested within an hour of starting to
hand out leaflets or play pro-democracy songs. The first time, in 1997,
he was swiftly deported; the second, in 1998, he was tortured and served
99 days of a five-year sentence in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison,
feverish and underfed in a cell measuring 10ft by 8ft. It was a
devastating experience that left him on the edge of madness.
By the time he returned a third time, in 1999 - in the certain knowledge
that a far longer prison sentence would follow - his motivations had
long surpassed public comprehension. At best, he seemed foolhardy; at
worst, mad or messianic, and a danger to the Burmese he was trying to
help. "People are welcome to say I'm foolish," he says with a shrug. "I
mean, it looks like that, doesn't it? I don't mind them saying that."
He endured savage beatings in Keng Tung, the jail in north-east Burma
where he spent the past year. Fifteen-strong gangs of men wielding
wooden clubs attacked him repeatedly in his cell, leaving him bruised
and bleeding internally. The rest of the time, he was lucky to be out of
solitary for an hour each day; often, he got only 10 minutes. A
flourescent light in his cell was never turned off. His parents could
visit only infrequently; he spent his days doing press-ups and reading
what few books the prison authorities did not confiscate - among them
Nelson Mandela's autobiography and a book by the 15th-century monk
Thomas a Kempis, reflecting his strong Catholic faith.
Mawdsley says he doesn't have the personality of a martyr, but it's
difficult to know how else to interpret his responses to his treatment
in Keng Tung. He refused the authorities' offer to punish his attackers;
they were actually prisoners he counted among his friends, coerced into
carrying out the wishes of the guards. And anyway, "beating someone up
is not nice, but it's very simple-minded - it's not particularly
sinister. . .after the fear I experienced in Insein prison I will never,
ever, ever question again what a man bows to do." He staged hunger
strikes, first at the incarceration of another political prisoner and
later in an effort to receive a transcript of his trial; he stunned
visiting representatives of the junta by answering back. "I gave them a
piece of my mind and they couldn't cope with it," he remembers. "They
ended up walking away."
It is only when conversation moves to the imprisonment of his Burmese
friends that tears well up out of nowhere. "I had a kind of hope, that I
was going to get out of prison and go back to England," he says, his
voice cracking. "Burmese people don't have that hope. When they get out
of prison, they're still in a prison."
He constantly contrasts the reality of "out there" with the soft,
insulated artificiality of "here". "When you're right up against
suffering - and I mean the people of Burma - you're attending to a
reality. We're protected from reality by consumerism and materialism."
Sometimes it is all too easy to hear in his speech echoes of the
stereotypical student on a year out - as if he is really still 19,
trapped for almost a decade in a gap year that has spun horrifyingly out
of control. But there is also an almost incomprehensible degree of
rationality - as when, he says, he responded with delight at hearing of
his 17-sentence. "I was thrilled. . . if they had given me two years,
I'd still be there. Everyone would have thought, well, he was stupid ,
he can slog it out. But the junta don't work like that. They overreact;
they're paranoid of dissent." The reasoning makes perfect sense; what is
staggering is that Mawdsley was in any state to think like that.
And he was never a romantic, backpacking, gap-year sort of student in
any case. He was born in Germany but grew up in Ormskirk, Lancashire -
with a twin brother, Jeremy, now a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery -
he got stellar A-level grades, and started a degree in physics and
philosophy at Bristol University. He was a typical student, he says. "If
I heard the words human rights, I just hated the sound of it. I wasn't
any kind of campaigner. I believed completely in the system - I thought
I'd work hard, get a good degree, get a good job, be a nice boy, and it
would all check out." And then, aged 20, he suddenly dropped out.
He still doesn't know exactly what it was that happened to him. Reading
Aung San Suu Kyi's biography Freedom From Fear seems to have played a
part; the way he characterises it, the weight of appalling information
simply became too great to ignore. "If two women in Burma were having
hot wax poured on every inch of their bodies," he remembers thinking,
"why aren't we doing something about it?" It was an epiphany that left
him facing a simple logical imperative: he had to know if what the human
rights reports were saying was true - that Burma's ruling junta was
killing tens of thousands of the country's people in a programme of
massacres, torture and slave labour - and to do that he had to go.
But why did the transformation happen when it did? He has no idea.
"There's a guy, Epictetus, historic Greek - he said you do what you've
got to do. I'll do what I've got to do." What he did was to travel to
New Zealand, where he met a group of Burmese refugees; he made his first
border crossing from Thailand into Burma shortly thereafter. When he
returned, life in Britain seemed petty and meaningless, and he was soon
back. The first time he was arrested, he was handcuffed, kicked and
punched; his shins were beaten with a bamboo stick before he was sent
home.
He never feared death, he says - especially after what he calls "the God
thing": the religious experience he underwent two months into his
incarceration at Insein. Previously, he had been a tepid Catholic;
afterwards, he says, "I thought, OK, I'm not here for myself, I'm here
to obey him I have nothing to fear from man. What can a man do to you?"
Throughout, Mawdsley's parents, David and Diana - a property manager and
a nurse, both with military backgrounds - have played a role that
astonished many. They are divorced, but campaigned energetically in
unison, not just for their son's welfare and release but for his cause
as well, even to the extent of backing his decision to return to certain
arrest.
"My mum went out to the border and was nursing there, and she saw the
victims of the suppression. She came back and said: 'James, I understand
why you went.' That was a magic line." When he returned for the last
time, Mawdsley's father tried to persuade him out of it - but when he
failed, he drove him to Heathrow instead, confused and proud and
frightened at the same time. "I've never been a particularly politically
aware person," he said later. "James has made me aware."
But there will not be another return. Mawdsley plans to write a book, to
work for Burma through institutional channels, maybe return to the Thai
border to meet friends from jail when they get released. But the mission
that has occupied the past seven years is complete.
"It's never naive to stand for the truth," he says. "I'm out in one
piece. I'm physically fit; I'm happy - I don't look it, but just give me
another week. People say it's stupid, it's a risk, I could have died but
I didn't die. It was a risk, but it was a caclulated risk. It paid off.
It worked well." He knew he had won when he stood up to the beatings,
refusing to lodge a complaint, and the authorities relented. "I thought:
I've done it. I've succeeded. They cracked before I did.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in that," he adds quietly.
____________________________________________________
DVB: Military intelligence arrests four students for staging protest
Text of report by Burmese opposition radio on 31st October
DVB [Democratic Voice of Burma] has learned that four students from
Tavoy State High School No.4 have been taken in for questioning by the
SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] Military Intelligence [MI].
The four students who had been expelled entered the school on 26th
October and shouted their dissatisfaction and staged a protest. Other
students joined them and shouted anti-government slogans. Headmaster U
Saw Shein and the teachers were able to control the situation.
The MI found out about the matter and questioned the headmaster,
teachers, and responsible parents on 28th October. One student was
detained at Wekyin police station in Tavoy. The remaining three are
being interrogated at the MI Unit-19 camp. The four arrested students
are Kyaw Lin and Thet Zaw Htay, both 8th standard students, and Saw Nge
Nge and Thet Naing Win, both 9th standard students. No details have been
received on why they were expelled and why they came back to school to
stage the protest.
Source: Democratic Voice of Burma, Oslo, in Burmese 1245 gmt 31 Oct 00
BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Nov 4.
___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
Kyodo: ILO May Still Punish Myanmar Despite Ban on Forced Labor
By Yasushi Fujii
GENEVA, Nov 6 (Oana-Kyodo) - Myanmar's bid to dodge International Labor
Organization (ILO) sanctions by banning its practice of forcing citizens
to toil on public works may not pass muster with the body, diplomatic
sources said Sunday.
They said an ordinance containing the ban, announced Thursday by the
Yangon junta, lacks ''the specifics'' needed to avoid punishing measures
that could include the suspension and downsizing of assistance from U.N.
agencies and international organizations.
The ILO governing body is to deliberate this month on whether to impose
sanctions on Myanmar under the ILO constitution's article 33, which the
global labor body has never invoked.
Countries such as the United States and Britain, critical of Myanmar's
human rights record, may argue for penalties by citing the lack of
specifics as an another attempt by the junta to thwart the will of the
international community, according to the sources.
A week after a five-member ILO mission to Myanmar completed six days of
talks with junta officials over the issue, Deputy Foreign Minister Khin
Maung Win said various government ministries had also issued orders
banning forced labor, but two laws -- the City Act and the Village Act
-- allowing forced labor have not been repealed.
Following the declaration of the ordinance by the Ministry of Home
Affairs under the guidance of the ruling State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), Myanmar no longer has ''the legal basis which existed in
the previous two acts,'' the sources said. The ordinance also says
government authorities cannot ''request forced labor.''
But diplomats see problems in the implementation of the ban.
For instance, the SPDC must send specific instructions to local military
commanders if the prohibition is to be effective and put into practice.
''So far, we have not seen any such thing,'' one diplomat said.
The mission may submit its report to the governing body as early as
Tuesday.
The document will serve as the basis for discussions on the matter at
the body.
The sources said Myanmar's omission of details on terminating forced
labor would be mentioned in the report, which will likely draw criticism
of Yangon by the U.S. and other states. An ILO spokesman declined to
discuss the contents of the report, saying it is still in the ''editing
process.''
In addition, Myanmar has rejected repealing the two acts, saying the
SPDC is only a ''transitional authority'' with no mandate to scrap laws
passed by a legitimate legislature. In November 1997, the SPDC replaced
the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which was formed
following a military coup in September 1988.
In 1998, the ILO adopted a resolution requesting Myanmar to end ''all
forms of forced labor.'' It calls for the repeal of the Town Act and
Village Act, as well as the punishment of officials involved in forced
labor.
Article 33 states that the governing body can recommend the IlO general
conference take ''such action as it may deem wise and expedient to
secure compliance'' with a recommendation by an ilo commission of
inquiry or a decision by the International Court of Justice.
In June, the International Labor Conference, the ILO's highest
decision-making body, adopted a resolution saying article 33 will be
invoked unless Myanmar makes concrete progress that is satisfactory to
the ILO by the end of November.
The time-buying resolution was adopted following a fierce debate in
which Japan and other Asian states pressed for more dialogue with and
encouragement of the junta to bring about an end to its use of forced
labor. The U.S. and European countries, meanwhile, urged immediate
invocation.
Some diplomats are concerned that resorting to the measure may open a
pandora's box of labor-practices cases, leading to sanctions against
countries such as Iraq and Cuba.
-- Oana-Kyodo
____________________________________________________
South China Morning Post: Exasperated UN observer leaves big shoes to
fill
November 6, 2000
William Barnes in Bangkok
The resignation of the United Nations human rights investigator for
Burma, Judge Rajsoomer Lallah, shows how difficult it is to deal with a
regime that is deaf to criticism, say sympathetic observers.
The resignation also points to the difficulty of finding adequate
funding for an unpopular job.
Human rights activists now fear that the United Nations will be tempted
to appoint a less critical inquisitor to try to tempt the regime to
respond positively.
Mr Lallah cited a lack of support from the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights. "This is a tremendous shame because his
reports were good. It's a nightmare job really because you don't get
much thanks from anyone - least of all from the regime of course," said
one London-based human rights activist.
The last straw may have been the recent "unfortunate administrative
misunderstanding" that prevented him from travelling from Geneva to New
York to present his latest human rights report to the UN General
Assembly and conducting important meetings relating to his mandate. His
predecessor as special rapporteur, Professor Yozo Yokota, resigned for
similar reasons.
The former chief justice of Mauritius said in what turned out to be his
last report that he viewed "with deep concern the continuing
deterioration of the human rights situation in Myanmar (Burma)". His
report serves as the draft for the UN General Assembly resolution on
Burma this month.
Mr Lallah, who has written increasingly gloomy reports over the last
four years, was never allowed to enter the country, but gathered
information from local experts, exiles, written testimony and
neighbouring countries.
As well as bitterly criticising the "extortion, rape, torture, forced
labour and portering" inflicted by the army on ethnic minorities, Mr
Lallah also slammed the hounding of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and her colleagues by threats and arrests.
One UN Human Rights Commission watcher said lack of funding was clearly
a problem.
This veteran observer described Mr Lallah as "an exemplary rapporteur,
delivering firm, well-written and legally meticulous reports on the
human rights situation in Burma", who noted above all the deep lack of
respect for democratic rights of all kinds.
"The generals will no doubt be very happy that they are no longer in
Judge Lallah's sights, and be hoping that the next special rapporteur
appointed by the Commission on Human Rights will be more accommodating,"
he said.
Burmese troops and their Democratic Karen Buddhist Army allies have
launched a heavy offensive against a rebel Karen National Union
stronghold near the Thai border, Thai officials said.
____________________________________________________
New Straits Times (Malaysia): Myanmar pledges support for Malaysia
November 4, 2000
MYANMAR have pledged their full backing for Malaysia's bid to stage the
2006 Asian Games.
Sports Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein said the support was pledged
by Myanmar National Olympic Council president Major Gen Thura Aye Mint
at
a meeting with the Malaysian Bid Committee for the Games in Yangdon on
Thursday.
"Myanmar have assured that it will vote for Kuala Lumpur in Pusan. The
support is based on strong ties between the two countries forged since
long ago, especially in sports and economics.
"Myanmar also express their confidence that Malaysia are capable of
staging the prestigious event."
The Malaysian delegation also met Myanmar's Social, Welfare, Relief and
Resettlement Minister Major Gen Sein Htwa and State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC) secretary-general Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, who is
also the Asean Steering Committee chairman.
The visit to Myanmar was the last in a series of similar visits
conducted by the bid committee. Earlier, they had visited a number of
Asian nations to woo support for Malaysia's bid to host the 2006 Asiad.
Apart from Malaysia, the other nations bidding to host the event are
Hong Kong, India and Qatar.
The successful nation will be announced at the Olympic Council of Asia
(OCA) general assembly in Pusan, South Korea on Nov 12.
____________________________________________________
_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
Xinhua: Foreign Investment in Myanmar Encouraging at Start of 2000-2001
YANGON, November 6
Foreign Investment in Myanmar in the first three months alone of the
present fiscal year 2000-2001, which began in April, has overtaken that
absorbed in the two previous fiscal years with 64.133 million U.S.
dollars, according to the latest data of the official Economic
Indicators.
The country drew only 29.455 million and 55.61 million dollars
respectively in 1998-99 and 1999-2000.
The investment in the first quarter of 2000-2001 is seen as encouraging
as the country has experienced a fall in the investment for years.
The obtaining of the encouraging amount of the foreign investment during
the three-month period as compared with the two previous fiscal years is
attributed to the huge investment alone in the oil and gas sector with
47.55 million dollars and that in the manufacturing sector with 15.871
million.
It is noted that South Korea, Canada and Malaysia injected the largest
investment in the three-month period with 30.21 million, 21.45 million
and 9.832 million dollars respectively.
Since the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis in mid-1997, Myanmar's
foreign investment fell for a two consecutive fiscal years to 777.394
million dollars in 1997-98 and then to 29.455 million in 1998-99 before
picking up a little in 1999-2000 with 55. 61 million.
During the period when hit by the crisis, direct investment from member
states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations reportedly dropped
by 70 percent.
According to official statistics, total foreign investment in Myanmar
drawn from 25 countries and regions since late 1988 amounted to 7.234
billion dollars as of the end of June this year.
____________________________________________________
Bangkok Post: Wa moving to saturate Thai market; Avalanche of speed
pills predicted
November 4, 2000
The United Wa State Army will flood the market with three billion
methamphetamine pills next year, or about 300 million tablets a month,
according to a Third Army source.
Production capability will be far above the estimated 600 million pills
their illegal factories in Burma churned out this year, the source said.
More gangs will shift to moving the drug into the country through the
East and Northeast rather than the North.
Because of the huge numbers of pills being made, shipments were expected
to be in bulk, ranging from 100,000 tablets to millions of pills.
The source said the Wa were experimenting with production of
methamphetamine in the form of an inhalant, which was expected to be
brought in via the border in Nan and Phetchabun. Gen Surayud Chulanont,
the army chief, said priority was being given to the problem, which
posed a threat not only to national security but also to politics. The
most effective way to combat drugs was to move against the producers and
dealers, cut demand and help addicts quit, he said.
An army source said the Internal Security Operations Command had
submitted its anti-drug plan for next year to Prime Minister Chuan
Leekpai as Isoc director.
- A former policeman and another man were charged with trafficking in
400,000 methamphetamine pills in Prawet district yesterday.
Police said Supoj Mansak, 30, and Kitti Supoonna, 36, were also found
with 618,000 baht and guns when they were arrested in a car park at
Chinda Mansion in Chalerm Phrakiat Soi 12.
Mr Kitti said he and Mr Supoj, a former traffic officer, had been hired
to deliver the pills. He said the value of speed traded in the past
three months was up to 44 million baht.
Wassana Nanuam
_________________OPINION/EDITORIALS________________
_____________________ OTHER ______________________
AP: Myanmar coach says he has a secret strategy against Thailand
Nov 5, 2000
[Abridged]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ Myanmar's national coach David Booth says he
will employ a secret strategy against Thailand when the two teams meet
Monday in their opening Group A match of the Tiger Cup tournament.
``The squad this time is much different from before. There are several
younger players and I am confident that they will work very hard ... to
get a result,'' Booth told reporters Sunday in the northern city of
Chiang Mai. The comments were reported in a press release by the
organizers.
The preliminary matches of the nine-nation Southeast Asian tournament
are being held in Chiang Mai and the southern town of Songkhla. On
Sunday, defending champion Singapore defeated Cambodia 1-0 and Malaysia
drew with Vietnam 0-0 in their Group B matches in Songkhla.
The final will be held in Bangkok on Nov. 18.
Also Friday, Indonesia will take on the Philippines in another Group A
match. The ninth team in the tournament is Laos, which will open its
Group B campaign on Tuesday against Malaysia.
Booth, one of the top coaches from Ghana's club sides, said it was
important that he kept his game plan a secret so that he could spring a
surprise on Thailand.
Peter Withe, the Thai coach, said he was not interested in finding out
how the Myanmar team played.
``As the coach of Thailand, I am more concerned about how we play. And
I do add that if we play to our true capabilities, we can beat any team
as we have shown in the past,'' he was quoted as saying in the press
release.
``I will go into the match ... like I have prepared any of the teams
before - that is to win,'' said Withe, a former England international.
``That is the only way I know how to play,'' he said.
The result of the Thailand-Myanmar tie could be crucial to Indonesia's
chances of making the last four.
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